Dr Emma Rich

Emma is a Reader/Associate Professor in the Department for Health at the University of Bath, UK. Her research examines sport, physical activity and physical/health education from a critical/socio-cultural perspective. She has published extensively in the area of the body, health and education, pioneering theoretical frameworks (e.g. body pedagogies) which are being used internationally in understanding the relationships between knowledge, learning and health practices across different social contexts.

She has led an international collaborative project funded by the ESRC examining the impact of new health imperatives associated with obesity, on schools and young people. She has a specific expertise in 'public pedagogy', examining public sites and spaces through which people learn about health, in recent years focusing on digital health technologies and media. She is co-author (with Andy Miah) of 'the Medicalisation of Cyberspace' which was a world-first in 2008, setting out the parameters of how people’s experiences of healthcare are being transformed by the growing use of digital technology.

She is a guest editor of a number of journal special issues relating to digital health including ‘pedagogies of health: the role of technology' in the journal 'Social Sciences' and 'Digital Cultures' in the journal Leisure Studies. She been awarded research funding from a range of sources including the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Wellcome Trust, the Society for Educational Studies, the International Olympic Committee, the International Olympic Academy and the Australian Research Council (ARC). Her major publications (books) are The Medicalization of Cyberspace (2008, Routledge) Education, Disordered eating and Obesity Discourse: Fat Fabrications (2008, Routledege) and Debating Obesity: Critical Perspectives (2011, Palgrave).